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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27522076">Love Is Blind</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgeLady/pseuds/EdgeLady'>EdgeLady</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Overwatch (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blind Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Eye Trauma, M/M, Masturbation, Monster Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, not particularly graphic eye trauma and just a quick line i promise</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 05:33:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,168</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27522076</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgeLady/pseuds/EdgeLady</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack takes a job to hunt the gorgon. He finds it... and something unexpected as well. </p><p>Written for the "Flesh &amp; Bone" R76 Myth and Monster zine.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>98</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Love Is Blind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Jack wakes in the dead of night with the alluring song in his ear, a haunting melody the likes of which he has never heard before.</p><p>He can feel it sliding warm and familiar down his spine. A gentle tingling, like the pad of a lover’s finger across his sensitive skin. The finer hair along his body rises, as if responding to touch. His cock twitches and hardens, and he arches his back, as if the melody could provide relief.</p><p>But, the faintest trace of grey seeps into the darkness, signaling the dawn, and to his chagrin the song softens and then fades altogether. There’s a moment of absolute silence, as if creation holds its breath, before a cacophony of sound strikes all at once: the clucking of hens, the braying of cattle, the earliest of birds, the rustling of bushes.</p><p>Frustrated, Jack lays flat once more and touches himself. Despite the immediate physical need satisfied, there’s a disquiet deep inside he cannot name, stirred by the lamenting song in the pre-dawn stillness.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>There’s a tale told of the gorgon, a woman with snakes for hair and the lower body of a serpent, who steals children away in the night. It’s rubbish. A story meant to scare youngsters into obedience.</p><p>But the reward the village elders offer is quite real.</p><p>Jack has spent much of his life as a soldier. Forced into retirement, the farm life he was born into doesn’t suit him. Nor does the reward particularly appeal. It’s the restless itch in his soul, made worse, perhaps, by the mysterious song in the night.</p><p>He’d hunted monsters with human faces during the war. What was one more?</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The first time he sees it, he nearly returns to the corn fields.</p><p>He’d never actually believed there was such a creature. But there it is in the fading afternoon light.</p><p>There… <em>he</em> is?</p><p>Lounging in the pool beside a waterfall, mountains a shadowy backdrop, the gorgon against a boulder, face upturned to the sky, eyes closed. Were this gorgon a man, he would be the most beautiful man Jack has ever seen.</p><p>Jack sees a muscular chest and glistening bronze skin, a tight abdomen, sharp cheekbones that could have been carved by an artist. Despite the slight downward tilt of full lips, it looks relaxed.</p><p>It’s the hair that gives the monster away. Long dark curls cascade over powerful shoulders. But a closer look reveals that each curl is a snake. They shift and coil, forked tongues flickering in the crisp air. Despite his initial revulsion, Jack cannot help but stare; they are black and green, each with beautiful patterns on their scales. As he watches, a jewel-green serpent curls against the gorgon’s cheek in a gentle caress. The gorgon’s lips twitch.</p><p>Then the gorgon’s eyes open and Jack looks away with a sharp breath. He knows not if the monster’s rumored magic works through the distance viewer, but why tempt fate? He crouches behind the boulder and lets his beating heart slow before he dares peek again.</p><p>The gorgon climbs from the pool. With legs. Very human legs. And very human… other things as well. But as glistening silver droplets slide down the powerful body, the beast transforms: legs morph into the tail of a snake. The scales at the slender waist are a dark red, fading into onyx-black, and the very tip of the tail is crimson again.</p><p>The gorgon pauses to pick up a bow and arrows that are thrown over its head and across its body before it continues, oblivious to being observed. Then it gracefully undulates away.</p><p>Jack returns to his camp, many miles in the opposite direction.</p><p>In the early morning, he wakes to the song again, deep and soft. Jack thinks it sounds lonely. He knows something about loneliness, he thinks, as he takes his swollen cock in hand and relieves himself.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Like a good soldier that wants to live through a day’s battle, he scouts the gorgon’s lair for days. He learns the monster’s habits, including that the bath is a daily ritual. At night Jack sips on a bottle of whiskey. He has awoken to the song more times than he can count.</p><p>Twice he’s watched hunters ride into the gorgon’s valley. And twice none emerged. The gorgon continues its routine, unrattled.</p><p>He thinks he is ready.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Jack was not ready. He wakes from a poison-induced sleep, tied to a marble column, with a black blindfold around his head. He’s annoyed with himself, for being tricked. The gorgon had never given any indication of knowing it was watched, and yet when he’d entered the broken temple, the monster returned early, catching him off guard. He struggles against his bindings now, frustrated.</p><p>“Don’t hurt yourself.”</p><p>Jack freezes. The butter smooth voice is so close the gorgon must have been waiting for him to wake. He can hear the tiny hisses of snakes over his own harsh breathing. “What do you want?” the soldier asks quietly.</p><p>The gorgon shifts. With his vision blocked, Jack’s hearing is sharper and picks up the sound of scales scraping against stone. He becomes aware of the monster’s scent. He doesn’t know what a gorgon ought to smell like, but he’s surprised that this one has a scent of warmth and spice mingled with evergreen trees, and something decidedly masculine as well. His cock twitches in interest, the traitor.</p><p>“Normally, I would have slit your throat for trespassing,” the gorgon says. “Or let you wake without a blindfold.”</p><p>“But?” Jack wonders if he can talk his way out. He’s not dead yet.</p><p>“You’re not like the others,” the gorgon observes. “You’re a soldier. A seasoned warrior. Not a fool. Why are you here? You surely know that no amount of gold is worth being turned to stone.”</p><p>Jack grunts. “Maybe I just wanted the thrill of the hunt.”</p><p>The gorgon laughs and slithers away. “Should I be flattered?” The monster’s voice comes from the right. There’s a hiss of a blade drawn from its scabbard, and the harsh scraping of a whetstone against steel. “What is your name?”</p><p>“Jack.” The gorgon hums and continues sharpening its blade. “Well, I told you mine. What’s yours?”</p><p>There’s a pause, and Jack thinks he might have surprised the monster. “No one has ever asked me that.” Another pause, another slice of steel across stone. “Gabriel.”</p><p>Jack’s eyebrows shoot up. He shifts, grimacing at the sting of an open wound on his arm, where the gorgon’s arrow had sliced him open. “That’s a very human name.”</p><p>“My father was human.”</p><p>“What? Your father was human… does that mean your mother was a gorgon? How does that work?”</p><p>“A gorgon’s mate is always human.” The scraping stops. “He always wore a blindfold. One day a hunter came. My father fought him, and during the fight, the blindfold slipped. My father took the man’s head off, but as he turned from the body, he caught a glimpse of my mother’s face and was turned to stone. In her grief, she fell upon his sword.” The whetstone clatters loudly and the monster approaches. The cold edge of the blade is placed to Jack’s throat. “I do not like hunters.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The gorgon cleans his throbbing wound every morning, and feeds him fruit and water. There are threats of lopping Jack’s head off, followed by curiosity about Jack’s life — his farm, his time as a soldier. Once, Gabriel’s claw traces the scar across Jack’s face with surprising tenderness. Jack shivers.</p><p>When Jack starts to reek the gorgon threatens to kill him for stinking up the place, then tosses him into the shallow end of the pool by the waterfall, hands still bound and eyes still covered tight.</p><p>They speak of human politics sometimes; at other times the gorgon brings cloth obtained from raided caravans, asking Jack about them. Gabriel’s favorite is silk. The day he rubs cool silk against Jack’s cheek, the gorgon is standing so close that Jack can almost feel the tiny breaths of the snakes on his skin. On a whim, Jack leans forward, and their lips touch.</p><p>Gabriel makes a startled noise, but does not draw away. Silk flutters to the ground, forgotten.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Gabriel’s threats become less frequent, and Jack’s hands are unbound, but his movement is still limited by a long chain and a collar around his throat. He knows not to remove the blindfold; he learns to navigate the ruined temple by touch and sound. He wants to ask Gabriel why he hasn’t killed him, but thinks it’s probably the same answer to why Jack hasn’t made any effort to run away.</p><p>Eventually, Jack asks how it was that Gabriel’s father had been drawn to the gorgon and fallen in love with her.</p><p>The snakes in Gabriel’s hair hiss in agitation and there’s nothing but stony silence. He leaves Jack alone much earlier in the day than his normal bathing time. Jack sits in the temple, pondering what had been so upsetting, when he hears the sounds of approaching horses. Heart thudding, Jack puts his back to a column.</p><p>“Who the hell are you?” one intruder demands. There are three of them.</p><p>“Poor bastard’s a prisoner!” another says. “We should free him!”</p><p>“Guess no man deserves this fate. But I ain’t sharing my treasure!” the first hunter warns.</p><p>“I don’t care about treasure,” Jack says truthfully. He listens for the sound of scales on stone as the third man whips out a weapon. The axe shatters the chain and Jack is free.</p><p>“Thank you, but you should go,” Jack says as he stands. “No amount of gold is worth being turned to stone.”</p><p>“I didn’t come all this way to free you! I’ll be rich after today!” the first man growls. “If you’re too much of a coward, then go!”</p><p>“Suit yourself,” Jack says.</p><p>He never removes the blindfold. The darkness is familiar. He knows the sound of wind moaning through the temple; he knows where the shattered pieces of marble are, and where the columns stand. He knows which way each man goes as they search the temple. He’s known for some time that the collar could come off anytime he chose, and now it does.</p><p>He slides the knife from his boot.</p><p>He catches the first man unaware, slicing his throat open. Before the gurling and clattering axe alerts the others, Jack has already scaled a nearby half-column. When another hunter runs beneath, he leaps like a big cat upon unsuspecting prey.</p><p>“Are you daft!” the man shouts. He dies without an answer.</p><p>The last screams a challenge, asking what sort of enchantment has been placed upon him. Jack does not answer. He walks out into the open.</p><p>“I’ll take your head off! Then I’ll take the gorgon’s!” the hunter shrieks.</p><p>Jack meets his blade, blow for blow. Calm. Deadly. The soldier does not notice the wounds he receives. He deals equal blows; the other man curses him. But the hunter is untrained and tires first. When Jack hears labored breathing, he goes for the kill. He’s not expecting the man’s final act to be tearing the blindfold away as he gurgles and falls.</p><p>Jack catches a fleeting glimpse of black and red scales before he slaps a bloody hand over his own eyes and falls with a cry, other hand desperately scrambling for the blindfold.</p><p>Gabriel grabs him instead. “Jack,” the gorgon murmurs. “Why would you protect me?”</p><p>Jack keeps his eyes covered. “The song. I haven’t heard it since I came here. But that’s how a gorgon finds its mate, isn’t it, Gabriel? That’s how your father found your mother? You were singing for me. I am meant to be here.”</p><p>There is silence. Then Gabriel lets go his hand and turns away. “Go home, Jack.” His voice is broken. Thick with emotion. “Go before I bring the curse upon you, like my mother did. I can’t… stand the thought of it. Go. Now.”</p><p>“No! I won’t—”</p><p>“<strong>I SAID BE GONE FROM THIS CURSED PLACE! I DO NOT WANT YOU HERE</strong>!” Gabriel roars with a fury Jack has never heard before.</p><p>He is compelled, perhaps by magic, to do as he is told.</p><p>Most of his journey is a daze of heartache and agony. Every step he takes away from Gabriel is pain. The halls of his childhood house are silent; he aches for the comforting sounds of the temple. He wakes in the night, feverish and weeping in the stillness that should be filled with song. He knows Gabriel will never sing again.</p><p>Finally, listless in a silence that seems to mock him, Jack can take no more.</p><p>He visits the town alchemist. And then he makes the journey <em>home</em>. He settles on the shores of the pool near the waterfall he knows so well. He hears the rustling of scale over stone and makes his move. The agony as he pours the acid over his eyes is sweeter than anything he’s ever known.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Huge thanks to Airfleeza, LotusRhys, and Giza, my fellow admins, for making a great team to put this zine together. It was a helluva project and it's beautiful. I hope folks who purchased the zine are happy with it!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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